I’ve had a sketchbook in handle for as long as I can remember. It sounds like a cliche to say that, but I really don’t remember a time I wasn’t sketching something. When I was incredibly young, I assume the majority of those “sketches” were more abstracted scribbles, but as I grew, I started to study drawing books more, tried drawing from life, etc. By the time I was in high school, art was what I did. To be fair, it wasn’t hard for me to study art because I had attended a fine arts school magnet school starting when I was ten until I graduated. (And as it was made painfully aware thanks to required ballet classes, I was NOT very gifted in the art of dance. I also lacked the ear for the violin- which I can in fact play- but I was never any good at tuning my instrument without help.)
I was always at home with art though. That clicked. My head matched my heart-which through some glorious combination of patience, talent, and magic-translated through my hands.
That said though, rarely does anything just “come out perfectly” the first time. It’s like my brain is faster than my hands- if I don’t work out my thoughts, everything gets muddied, like a crude translation of a language you barely can speak.
Which is why I sketch. To strengthen those muscles. To make it so natural that it’s essentially just muscle memory. No thought required. Some people journal, but my brain usually goes too quickly for words (which is why you’ll only see snippets of thoughts if you ever look in my sketchbook. Probably why I enjoy poetry as well.) Line work though? My lines can keep up with my brain. My hand can translate my thoughts onto paper- of course it’s normally in a short handed version that only I understand.
This is a page from the third go round of sketches for my upcoming series OF A FEATHER. You can see things beginning to take shape- morph into their final form. What you can’t see are the colors in my head- those usually only come out when the watercolor touches paper.